1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a technology for computing a skill value of an agent that responds to inquiries from customers.
2. Description of the Related Art
At contact centers (or call centers) agents respond to inquiries from customers via electronic mails or telephone. Administrators of such contact centers record handling time taken to respond to each inquiry, and calculate a skill value of each agent based on the handling time.
The agents are assigned tasks depending on their skills. The agents may be given training to improve their skills. The agents are treated differently depending on their skills, and thereby motivating the agents.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-258551 discloses a technique to acquire an accurate skill value of an agent. In the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-258551, however, the difficulty level of a task assigned to an agent is not taken into account. Generally, difficult tasks, which take longer time, are often assigned to agents having higher skills. Accordingly, if skill values are calculated from only the handling time, the result is not always accurate.
In the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-258551, moreover, transfer (also referred to as escalation) of tasks is not taken into account. In large contact centers, it is common to group the agents into a plurality of lines based on the skills of the agents. Supposing that there are three lines, front, middle, and back, then agents having lower skills are assigned to the front line, agents having intermediate skills are assigned to the middle line, and agents having higher skills are assigned to the back line. If a task is too difficult for an agent in a lower-level line such as the front line or the middle line, that task is transferred to a higher-level line such as the middle line or the back line.
In other words, agents in the lower-level lines take shorter time per task because they handle easier tasks, and the agents in the higher-level lines take longer time per task because they handle difficult tasks. As a result, if the skill values of the agents are calculated from only the handling times, the agent in the lower-level lines may acquire higher skill values than the agents in the higher-level lines, which makes the evaluation of skills of the agents difficult.
Thus, there is a need of a technique with which it is possible to calculate appropriate skill values.